This page: Photos of a battle-weary Mk1 Lotus Cortina, covered in mud and looking very secondhand.

Tony Chappell's Lotus Cortina Mk1.

Two photographs are shown below, both showing a mud-splattered Mk1 Lotus Cortina, a much sought-after car today and in the late 1960s a car high up on the shopping list of any rally-mad car enthusiast. The first photograph shows the Cortina's front end. Registered MJH 120C, it looks to have taken quite a battering on the rally stages, with at least one of it's auxiliary lamps having disappeared somewhere on stage. Just visible is an RAC rally sticker on the bonnet, and a map reading light just in front of the car's co-driver. Bobble-hatted rally spectators suggest a winter's day.

The second photo shows the Lotus Cortina's battered flanks - just look at the state of that bashed rear wing. The Lotus badge fitted to the rear wing has had a circle drawn around it in the mud, by a passing finger. In this shot the driver, Tony Chappell, whose name can just be made out on the door, is seen sat behind the wheel, enjoying a cigarette. Chappell competed in a Lotus Cortina throughout the 1960s, and won the International Welsh Rally in 1966 (co-driven by Barrie Llewellyn). In later years he competed in rallycross behind the wheel of a twin-cam Ford Escort.

Return to Old Motoring Photos Page No. 10. Photographs of road-going, standard, Mk1 Cortinas can be found on this page, while a photo of the Lotus Cortina's understudy, the GT, can be seen here.

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